Quote:
Originally Posted by gteague
1) it's not just the display reset. every operation has a delay that's just enough to frustrate a fast-twitch guy like me.
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I'm not sure that's true. The only delay other than display delay that I notice is the EVDO delay and the power-on/wake-from-sleep. Almost every other function requires a change in display, either a full screen refresh, a pop-up menu, or a character-by-character update (text entry, checkbox). All of these functions are going to be slow because of the e-ink hardware display issues. Nothing software can do about it.
The LED on the side is fast to move up and down, the only time it appears slow is in response to functions, and I bet that isn't a CPU or software issue, but rather because it's timed to respond in sync with the slow display changes.
I did one test to see if the device was slow or just the display: I set the device for screen lock and before the screen could refresh to the screen saver page (which is slow), I hit next page. If the lock takes effect immediately, then it won't advance. It didn't. The screen lock was effective faster than I could hit the next page, even though the screen saver was delayed. The LED turns off immediately in this case as well, it doesn't wait for the screen redraw.
There are a few things that Amazon can do to mitigate this issue:
- Better menuing so actions take fewer page redraws
- Prefetch next page from wireless wherever possible so there is less waiting EVDO delay+display delay. They are caching, so they could already be doing this and I'm just out advancing the prefetch, but it doesn't seem like they are.
- Since partial page redraws are faster (or so it seems to me), create functions like one-button access to a pop-up of the previous pages last two lines (I sometimes find I prematurely advance a page and then have to go back one page to catch the beginning of a sentence. Since this happens often enough, a function to just do a partial screen pop-up redraw would be faster.
- Have designed the device with an additional small LCD for text input so at least that is more responsive -- this is why they have the separate mirrored LED selector afterall. Of course, this isn't a software change, but is design feature that Amazon could control (unlike e-ink development).
Since I did a bit of research prior to purchasing, I knew this was a limitation of the display, yet it still was a bit of a shock to experience for the first time since I am so used to fast typing, fast reading, and fast screen updates. For folks who buy it without knowledge of infancy of e-ink technology (from a user's standpoint), it likely is a big letdown.